Interview recorded 15 May 2020
Changing Dynamics
David:
Haha, yeah exactly, but all those things help and they are there for a reason – to try and communicate the things that are missing in a personal interaction. Even people who had physical events like dancing or healing where you would go to the physical location to do the thing, are now doing those things online. A friend of mine, Yvonne Lumsden, who runs Kundalini Dance events in Melbourne has recently been working through the process of taking that event and creating an online version of it. It’s a very different experience when you go to something physically that if you join in online.
The physical presence is missing, and so a whole new dynamic is created, which also brings about a different outcome.
This is also true for counsellors and healers who now do their work online. And it’s the same when you work online. It’s a very different experience that when you work in a physical office with other people.
Danielle:
That’s very interesting because there has been a limited number of practitioners that work remotely in the past from what I’ve observed in the communities I’ve lived in.
David:
Yeah, those types of “non-essential” businesses where some of the first that the government closed down due to coronavirus, so a lot of practitioners where faced with ‘what do I do now?’. I just think that the shift to online work and the online experience is creating a very different experience for many people than they used to have in a ‘live’ environment. In particular, the way people communicate with each other. In a lot of ways it can be easier to express yourself online that in a physical setting with other people. Being in the comfort of your own home – feeling safe. It’s actually a very positive thing, I think.
Danielle:
Yeah, that’s so true. I hadn’t really actually thought about that. Just having spoken to people in the past that worked remotely who have different angles on it. There have been certain spiritual practitioners I have gone to in Costa Rica that was in their space and environment that I thought was a beneficial thing in that context. But I can see how the experience someone would have in their own home with that sense of safety there.
David:
Yeah, and it’s all the things that go along with going to see someone in a live environment. You’ve got to prepare, have a shower, drive through traffic, allow more time etc. And by the time you get there, what state of mind are you in? It’s a very different state of mind than if you’re relaxed in your own home… and a very different outcome and dynamic.
Danielle:
Yeah, it’s interesting about different dynamics and the thing that I noticed just for myself and my family. I worked out of my house for a year in Bali. We were in a villa that was designed around a central pool area, which is not a house design we would be familiar with in Australia. With our family having three children, the dynamic wasn’t ideal for being super productive with work. One thing we noticed was environment – your home layout – the mix of family or whatever it might be. It is constantly changing and never stays the same.
In this particular situation I had just taken on an extra client and I had a full schedule. And also the other element that came in was glitchy internet. So my husband and I talked about it and we decided for me to find a room somewhere I could make an office. So that’s what we did. Actually, my husband went around on the scooter researching it, doing internet speed tests on his phone over a number of weeks. It sounds so funny, but these are the things you do, you know?
David:
Hahaha, oh yeah! I wish I’d done that here. The internet is so glitchy, it can be a major disruption to your work flow.
Danielle:
Oh yeah, with drop-outs etc, it’s hard. So, we found this place that was a wonderful modern home-stay. It was only a couple of minutes scooter drive from our house, but the internet speed was like fantastic and super-stable. They had this little room that was ideal. Away from the pool and quiet with a garden, I loved it. But what I noticed leaving the family and coming home – because I’d been working in the house with the family for so long, having meals together and talking etc – it was so life-changing. It was great for work productivity etc, but what I noticed was when we I made the decision to leave that office and come and work back home, and come back to Australia because of Covid, I found that even though my focus goes here-and-there because of the kids and having breaks with them etc, I am just as productive.
But I also have the feeling of love throughout the whole day because I’m in my family environment.
Working at home with a family
Danielle:
It was so noticeable the difference of just having work focus working alone than when we where hanging out together as a family. I often think about other parents who wonder how they are going to get work done because of their kids. It made me think having more awareness around even though it may feel like it’s taking the edge of your focus and productivity, for me what I’ve experienced is massive benefits personally that then boost things like your creativity, your inspired thought and your inspired action-taking.
That was a super-cool experienced having that time in the office to get clear about that. I love having my desk in the middle of the family action happening. Where are now staying with family in Australia, I don’t have a dedicated office, but I know that when I do it will have that integration that is huge for me in terms of lifestyle and fulfilment and connection with family.
David:
Yes, it must be absolutely wonderful to have that. My partner and I may start a family soon, so I may be facing that work situation. It may be that people will be faced with fear of having their family around all the time interrupting the work. I know some parents find it challenging with their kids, but what you say is inspiring to know that it can be very productive, creative and fulfilling.
Danielle:
I think with different family units there are different dynamics as well, you know? Between my husband and I we are aware of the practicalities. It would be a lot more challenging for us if we were both trying to split everything. He is the primary carer and responsible for their home schooling and morning routine and all that, and I work full-time. We’ve also had different dynamics like when we started Greason Media he was working then, the kids were younger and we had a nanny. Then the dynamics changed when they got to school age and they started with home schooling activities and we couldn’t both work and have a nanny.
So what we are aware of is that at this stage with the kids the age they are, not having a split of work and home schooling. That makes a huge difference to how we’re able to enjoy our down time so much more because we’re not always trying to do these switches and swaps.
Something we have really become aware of is when the dynamic is not working we take a step back and reflect on what we could tweak, either from a practical standpoint or from the way you are perceiving it.
Right at this time the dynamics are having one income earner and one primary home schooler and primary carer, and that has made everything a lot smoother. We had tried other ways were I’d drop the kids at day care, leave the keys with them and catch the bus to the city where I worked at a law firm. Then after work Dan (my husband) would pick up the kids and the car from day care and then pick me up at the bus stop. It’s like… yeah, nuh… that’s just not gonna happen again haha!! We’ve tried a lot of other variables… given them all a good crack, but yeah… not that way again! It’s like a distant memory now, but yeah.
David:
Yeah, I totally get it. And if one thing in that plan fails, like you can’t find the car keys or you miss the bus, it creates a lot of stress. I remember that feeling too and am so glad to be living an independent lifestyle right now in Bali. You’ve had such a wide experience in the different dynamics, especially with bringing up a family while you move into remote work, and move around the world living in different locations.
Considering all the personal growth you have gone through with that, do you think that people in the current coronavirus situation and with both parents working full-time jobs who have probably had to now work from home, how do you think people will be coping with this new dynamic? – with the whole family unit now living and working at home?
Danielle:
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I can only make an assumption, but I’ve actually heard people expressing their shock at having to work with their husband 24/7 or sharing a room as an office. It’s like what I was talking about with that comparison of smooth productivity in an office environment compared with the slightly more chaotic and higgledy-piggledy day-to-day schedule integrating work and family in the same space.
It’s like just being aware of “what is it that I could tweak to get this feeling good for me?”. For example, when I first started working online my second daughter who was then breast feeding. She was over 1 and eating food, so it wasn’t like if she didn’t get a feed it would be that bad, but she would want extra feeds if she saw me. And because we were starting to work online and trying to get our income setup, what we would do is I would not come downstairs to get a drink or something as it would ruin the smoothness of Dan’s morning – doing whatever he had to do with the kids. As soon as she saw me she would want a drink and it would throw things off, then Dan would have to soothe her in order for us to be productive. That was hard when we were trying to get things off the ground financially so we could keep that lifestyle.
So we look at things from a very practical standpoint if things aren’t working to get things working smoothly again. I could imagine there are so many different little tweaks on that of people figuring our the right dynamic that works for them. I can certainly appreciate how that could be challenging for people to try and figure it out all in one go.
David:
A lot of people I guess are forced into how to be a parent. All of a sudden their dynamic has changed radically, which could be a bit of a blessing or a bit of nightmare.
Danielle:
Yeah, that’s right, but definitely more opportunity for connection.
Transitioning to online work
David:
I do see the parallels with what’s going on now with forced lockdowns and families now working from home with what I went through when transitioning into online work. But people are forced to do it very quickly and are now faced with all these new challenges. You’ve had such a wealth of experience on how to handle all that, and I wonder if VA Lifestyle Design is having a surge in interest?
Danielle:
Yeah, definitely. What’s really been interesting is that people who studied the online biz skills a long time ago are now realising now is their time and are getting back into it. So, as well as the new interest, there are those who are being reminded that they were going to go forward with that realising now is the time. I’ve had the most enquiries from people making sure they have access to the right online training materials right now, so that has been super-interesting to see.
David:
Yes, I was interested to see how much more interest you’ve had with people asking “how do I do this online thing?”, you know?
Danielle:
Yeah, well, we’ve had a lot of interest in terms of “how do I do this?”, but we’ve also had a lot of enquiries coming in about “has it fallen off the cliff?”, and “is it now that you can’t get work online?”. People’s perspective is being impacted by things shutting down and business being forced to close, so as well as people wanting to get into it, there’s also this uncertainty about online work.
But the feedback I’m getting is that there is just so much online work out there now.
Sure, some individual client’s may close or finish up due to the change in the marketing landscape, but people with smaller entrepreneur clients and startups where their business revenue is their personal income are in high demand.
So, really it’s just been a shift in demand, either in terms of picking up other clients that are surging. For example, meditation, fitness, home cooking, crafts and online school lessons etc are having the most growth they’ve ever experienced because the demand and attention is now focusing on these things. And with any shift there are going to be changes, and absolutely for some people that means needing to replace clients increase their work volume elsewhere. But in no way have I seen things dropping down across the board, there is just so much happening right now.
And the other big thing is where people had either studied with me in the past or had considered working online and knew of VA Lifestyle Design, but hadn’t really zeroed in on it. They may still be working in their day job or busy with whatever they are going, but this situation has prompted them to really zero in on it and realise that is what they are meant to do. They have declared that this is the right time.
For us, when we got started, we planted our stake in the ground, so to speak, when we picked up and left the country with no remote work and very limited funds, and we just like “let’s make it happen”! And for some people, this is that same scenario.
Whether they’ve lost their income or just lost their sense of certainty, they realise this potential to have the independence and flexibility, and to take self-responsibility for the way they’ve set up their own work and income generation.
This is that forced make-or-break scenario. And that is definitely the way I’ve seen people perceiving it based on the emails from people I’ve been getting.
David:
Yeah, fascinating. That’s how I thought things might go down. People may either step up, thinking this is the perfect time to make a transition, or they might go into panic mode and shutdown. The ground is no longer solid for a lot of people, and the vertigo from all this swift change can be a bit much.
Danielle:
Yeah, for sure. And the media buzz can take away a bit of the clarity you might normally have for those other things, whether it be working online, your health or whatever it might be.
David:
Yeah, a lot of fear being generated around people’s survival, and the trust in a system that has always been there and now suddenly isn’t. Like the carpet being pulled out from under your feet, you know? So I really asked that question because I was thinking if a lot people might be wondering how to start working online, and your services would be in very high demand right now.
Danielle:
Yes, that’s very true. And actually that is how Online Biz Skills got off the ground, was that an American woman I am friends with had a community of people that were travelling, or were wanting to travel with families, and she was talking about the lifestyle aspects of that but wanted to share information I have about generating an income as a family.
I was really thinking that parents need to know this, that you don’t have to be a marketing expert or a coder, that there is this support and implementation work, and people just don’t see it because it’s not in front of them.
I really wanted to get this message out that there is this implementor work where you don’t need to be technically or creatively savvy to get going. And that was a revelation to me, because I thought you had to be a coder or a designer and I was neither.
So when she heard me talking about this, she was like ‘so, do it!’. So that was part of how it got off the ground, but then after that it’s been through social media advertising. And with a lot of the changes were happening for us as a family like deciding to leave Bali and come back to our home country, packing up all our stuff that we had acquired, we had a dog… like a full base set up there, and then changing all of that, I turned off all advertising, turned off reaching out to people.
So in actual fact, in terms of the organic enquiries coming in it’s been surging, but in terms of traffic it’s gone down as a result of me not putting a focus on it while we were shifting back to Australia. I’m picking that back up now because it’s time to start connecting with people again. The amount of people who are wanting to find out the ins-and-outs of it (Online Biz Skills) has massively picked up. As I said, part of that is because of new people being referred, and partly other people who had considered it in the past but not gone all the way in, but now see it as their window.
The Online Biz Skills landscape
David:
Yeah, that’s so interesting. Thinking about the way the course is designed and how you have delivered it, obviously way before Covid came along, do you think that it is even more relevant now, or do you need to tweak some part of your course to take into consideration the new (Covid pandemic) landscape. Has it changed the way you deliver the course?
Danielle:
Yeah, definitely. In one of the course units I talk about reaching out proactively to connect with clients, to have point of connection with them and this offer to help. In the current context I doubt this changes, but what does change is the perspective that you have in terms of thinking if it is doable, or if it is possible. And that goes back to what I was talking about before with the questions I’m receiving about if everything has just shut down now. But it definitely hasn’t. It’s just a shift, you know? Yes, it has massively impacted some smaller entrepreneurs, but bigger brands are prepared financially to ride out times like this. They shift their focus to brand marketing instead of direct response and it becomes about community building instead of sales.
Then when I think about the practical skills training aspects, that is constantly being tweaked on an ongoing basis, but no related to the changing global landscape with Covid. I really think what it is… it’s like one of the lessons in the intro unit is ‘Be the obvious choice’, which was one of the lessons I received a lot of feedback on as so many people were thinking the market is too competitive, or someone else can do it at a lower rate than I can.
So, it’s not about thinking that I am the best at this so they’ll (the client) will pick me, or I’m the most experienced or do the best job, it’s just about be the obvious choice. It’s like having this state of mind that is really into this client and I’m willing to respond to their social media messages within 24 hours and not just do their website stuff.
So yeah, it’s probably unlikely that someone is going to cover off all those bases, so I’m probably in with a chance. Like, why wouldn’t they hire me? You can’t be that for everyone, but you can perceive yourself with that likelihood of being the perfect person for that scenario and that business in a certain set of freelance opportunities.
For me, that’s the big thing that this current global shift and Covid situation has impacted. It’s the mindset you’re in about saying yes, there is work there and I’m the obvious choice for the client.
Having that awareness as you start to reach out is crucial. But the process of reaching out and how you’re going to do that, and the skills you’re going to use to do the work are mostly not impacted. Does that make sense?
David:
Yeah, it does, for sure. I just thought about how you may deliver, or how you would sell or promote your course now that you’ve moved back to Australia and settled there?
Danielle:
In terms of the messaging when I’m sharing about it, yeah. That’s a really good point. Do you have any thoughts on that? That side of it, the messaging and the context, is something that I’ve been thinking about but haven’t really come to any conclusions on yet. I would be curious to hear your thoughts on that?
David:
Well, the reason why I asked that question is because there has been this perspective shift with many people as well as the impact on their lives. Many people are now considering things that they may not have in the past, especially with work. They may be exploring other options they hadn’t thought of before and wondering how they can now earn an income. Things are looking a lot different now, and so there has been a big shift if priorities and perspectives. I’m thinking that what you offer is even more relevant now, and there is such benefit in that with how you can help people make that transition to online work.
Danielle:
Yeah, it’s not just about location independence anymore or moving around and living abroad. That is just one slice of the pie, so to speak. Just one element.
David:
Yeah, you can’t really sell it that way anymore. The independent traveller lifestyle, working remotely from locations all around the world…. laptop beside the pool having a drink… that kind of stereotypical digital nomad picture haha… that isn’t like that anyway haha! But nonetheless, all that has changed right now because everyone is locked down in their own country and no one can travel right now. So I guess there will be a different way you may present the course and lifestyle?
Danielle:
Yeah, that’s true. Exactly. Plus we’re in our home country now, so that’s not part of the messaging any more haha! We’d been living abroad for nine years, almost to the day. When we came back to Australia we meet up in an Air BNB to go into (government required) self isolation in Brisbane. It’s completely different now. When we started it was living abroad having location independence, but now we are in our home country we are probably going to have an Australian lifestyle.
It’s definitely different, and I think also a big shift has happened in video. Dan and I used to record videos when we first started. We would talk about different aspects of lifestyle elements. Then as things changed, Dan stopped doing client work and the kids got to school age and we didn’t have a nanny anymore. At that point I started doing the videos, and where I’ve found they have tended to go, and what I’m inspired to talk about, is more skills focused.
One of the latest videos I talk about the common threads in what digital marketing support work actually is, breaking it down for people. It’s text, images, video and audio in all different formats on all different platforms. When it comes down to it as a supporter you’re just working with those things in proactive ways and knowing what buttons to press.
When we started all this, the vides were about the inspiration of the lifestyle and living abroad, and now it’s about the nerdiness on a skill level of what’s involved in doing the work. For some people the lifestyle is quite novel, but for us it was just another option, another life choice.
And the way I see it shifting as well with the messaging is more of breaking down the skills and helping people to see that thing that I’ve always been passionate about, which is it’s not just for the experts and the techies and the creative geniuses. It’s for the detail oriented nerds that just want to get in there and play with the text and the images, you know?
That really is probably what I will keep on talking about. Of course, as you said, there is that stuff that comes up for people in the new day-to-day life when they make that transition to online work.
Adapting to change
David:
Yeah, and I think because of the experiences you’ve had bringing up a family while you’ve been doing this, has put you in such a great position to perhaps even sell the course as the ‘new’ VA Lifestyle Design, which is working from home. Working with your family and adjusting to that new dynamic. It’s still the same work, but it’s now a different lifestyle. You’ve had so much experience doing that, that it could be something you could perhaps weave into the course now?
Danielle:
Yeah, that’s so true. That’s a really good point. It’s interesting with family, and it’s really good to hear that perspective. I noticed that Twitter announced that they are going to continue to let their staff work from home when the lockdown ends. Also, one of my clients had all of their in-house staff in a central office location, and they have their marketing contracted externally, but their customer support, their product buying and their design is all in-house. So all of those people were used to coming in and seeing each other everyday, but are now working from home. They asked me for any insights or tools for the remote team communication and what processes keep people connected. That was a really interesting thing to see because we don’t normally talk about that.
So, I’m seeing not just big companies like Twitter, but also smaller brands are being forced to figure out the practicalities of it, and now have the digital infrastructure set up for that. You can see how it’s going to be a broad range of people that will continue to have the opportunity to stay working from home.
Of course, some people are going to go back to the office, but they all have had a taste of what online work is like. Companies are seeing that people don’t loose productivity, and they stay connected, collaborating and creating. I think there’s going to be some huge opportunities in that regard as well, still as an employee, which is different from what we’re doing as freelancers or contractors.
It doesn’t matter if you’re independent or an employee, it’s about adapting the variables to match with your values, or as a family. It’s about looking at the different scenarios you can create for yourself. I think there is going to be more of the remote employee setup now than there was before.
When I first started working online in early 2011, I felt that remote employee work was quite limited, and even more so for the higher-level people. There wasn’t a lot of remote customer support or remote blog manager or what-have-you, it was just freelance, like the wild west. It was just people working out deals between each other. But as time went on, I saw more and more remote work coming down to the mid-range expertise level, or entry level, with less technical expertise required with an actual employee arrangement. I saw that really ramping up over the next decade.
David:
Oh yeah, absolutely. I guess the longer these lockdown conditions continue, the more companies are likely to invest in remote work setups for their employees. I can’t see how after such investment that even when the lockdown is over, that it will return to the way it was. The new online infrastructure has been setup, and if it’s working, why change it back?
And as you say, they will realise that it works quite well in regards to productivity, communication and creativity, so they may not be inclined so spend another bucketload returning to the old office setup where they may be paying high building lease costs.
Dannielle:
Yeah, or it might be that there’s the potential to blend office work and working from home. I see more companies perhaps doing this, you know, with the hot desks and so forth.
David:
Yeah, when I used to work in an office they were slowly rolling out remote work as an option for people. It was very slow and only select departments were chosen where some people would have a couple of days working from home. It was probably a good thing they started that and having those procedures in place would have made it easier when Covid hit and the lockdowns began.
Danielle:
Yeah, exactly. It’s like ‘here’s the decision made for you, figure it out!’. I’m sure there is going to be a huge shift in companies having that realisation.
David:
Yeah, and also the employees. They are working from home and thinking ‘oh, I’m getting used to having Skype and Zoom calls, and I like having this independence’.
Danielle:
Yeah, and instead of the one hour commute to get to work, ‘I’ve got one hour to research my side hustle’ or whatever.
Your energy and your health
David:
Yeah, they may well be thinking how can I now make this online work happen for me independently? That edge that seemed so far away before, now looks a lot closer and possible. That leap now looks like a step, you know?
Danielle:
Yeah, the work starts to be perceived as normal and then your brain just acts as though it’s easier. The transition is going to be a little bit different than how it has been for a lot of people up until now. And I know for both of us the common thread that you mentioned is your energy.
Your physical energy and clarity of thought. Everyone has such different variables in their situation, and at different times, but the common thing is that it all seems to work when everyone has the capacity, mentally and physically.
That’s always been a really big thing that we have prioritised as a family. Even with the kids. They know when they’re not feeling grounded. Even as little kids we would talk about these things, like if they had darkness under their eyes they would ask for more green juices. We have constantly talked about these things as a family, and this is one of the things that definitely keeps the machine well oiled and running well. If everyone has the capacity, you can make it work.
David:
Yes, self awareness is a big thing, and working like this (online) really brings a lot of those things into light. How you look after yourself – taking that responsibility for yourself, and your health. I think you touch on that in your course – making sure you look after your health.
Danielle:
Yeah I do touch on that a little bit. And you may have heard about my habit of lying my head on the ground to ground out the wifi hahahaha! I don’t know if it actually works like that, but it feels like it does! You know, we used to do that as kids in the school playground – lay down and look at the clouds. And that’s one thing when you’re getting this off the ground, learning the skills as well as doing the client work, and maybe you’re doing a day job as well, doing many more hours with all the extra learning and troubleshooting time – you can get that wired feeling from it all.
That was something I picked up in Costa Rica – working really hard making it all happen, but ahhhhhh… feeling fried… so I’d lie down on the ground. At the moment here we make some tea and smoothies in the morning with the kids and sit outside on the grass looking at the veggie garden. We talk about how the beans know how to reach up to wrap around the lattice. Like, how do they know?
It’s just sitting in the outdoors and doing things like that integrated throughout your life to really keep you grounded.
We used to do these things as a separate thing, like plan to go for a walk on Saturday morning, but now we keep it integrated in our day-to-day life. We were very inspired by a friend of ours in Costa Rica that we met a few months after we go there. He is probably one of the most successful people online from a financial perspective. He had such an inspiring way of integrating his time. He would spend time online, then get out in the garden and make improvements on his property that was set up for permaculture.
Before that I only knew hard-core digital marketers or people who sold-up and moved onto the land. He was this really interesting blend. And there was another guy called Jarivs who integrated his digital marketing with getting out in the veggie garden. It’s not like your this type of person, or that type of person, but it’s constantly integrated. And it doesn’t have to be a whole garden, just getting out into the sun on a patch of grass makes a huge difference.
David:
Yeah, that is so important and so inspiring hearing you talk about that. I mean I love going out for my walk in nature. And here in Bali where I’m living now, I can get out in the open rice fields and it’s very peaceful and rejuvenating.
I say to myself I should be doing this every day, but there are so many days where I find myself stuck to the computer. I don’t have that discipline yet of getting the right balance in life, especially working in the field of digital marketing where it is quite consuming.
It’s like, you’re constantly in wifi staring at your screen, and at times I get completely fried. It’s then that I just have to get out in nature and re-balance and replenish my energy. I find it brings be back into myself, you know? Get’s me grounded. And I’ve found myself really fried a few times, it’s not a nice place to be and your health suffers. So I know how important it is to get that sunlight on you and go for that walk and get the blood flowing.
Danielle:
Yeah, I know. I’ve always thought that there are times for hustling – helping clients do big launches or when you’re getting things up and running in your own business. I feel that you’re aware that that balance needs to come in, but sometimes it’s ok if it’s not there.
Like when I was transitioning from a freelance assistant into starting an agency and contracting a whole heap of people. I needed to keep the work flowing to them so I could build a relationship with them and have their support. And that was also when we had a new born baby, and I just knew that exercise was just in the mix for a period of time. I knew that it was impacting me physically. I was awake a lot through the night – like with a new born baby – and had lost one full-time client. I needed to make the decision to find more client’s or start our own full-time thing.
At that time I wasn’t thinking about stopping and going for a walk in nature. Sometimes when you hear people saying you’ve got to have a morning routine or you got to do this or that, it’s like it’s cool to know you have access to all those things, but I’ve always just thought that you know when it’s your time to balance it out and ground out, but in the interim, it can just be little things like getting out and lying on the grass.
I feel like for us it’s always been a rhythm. We’ve been through stages where Dan and I will go to the gym together, have sauna, then have cold plunge, then a three hour stretch and do that for a number of weeks before we feel we need to pull that back a bit and balance it out with other things. It’s always been an ebb and flow type of thing for us.
David:
Yeah, it’s very much again about managing your own energy, isn’t it? And you know when you push too far – where your edge is. If you push over it and keep going, you know something is going to be affected by it. And yes, sometimes we have to go over that edge to complete something urgent or whatever it may be, but we know in the back of our mind that something usually has to give.
Danielle:
Yeah that’s right, that’s so true. It’s fun to learn more about yourself as you go along. I like it. Knowing what you need at any time, what your focus needs to be. It’s a great thing to pass onto your kids.
David:
Wow, yeah, it sure is. Thanks so much for your time Danielle.
Danielle:
It’s been great to brainstorm about my favourite thing ever, so thank you. It’s been awesome.
Moving back home
David:
Just in closing, what was the decision that made you decide to go back to Australia? Was it the Coronavirus threat, or was it something else?
Danielle:
Ah, it wasn’t so much the threat from a safety and health perspective, it was more so the uncertainty with having three children, with visa requirements, flight restrictions and border restrictions. It was having that uncertainty around making the decision to stay, is it going to be us trekking around with kids trying to re-qualify for visas, negotiate or what have you. We thought if we made the decision to be with family – and it felt like it was the time to connect with our extended family – and what if we wanted to get into Australia and we can’t.
It wasn’t like ‘Ah, there’s a threat’ and feel like we had to get back to safety, it was more a feeling of uncertainty and the feeling of needed to be with extended family with kids in the mix. I’m quite sure if we didn’t have kids we would probably go ‘hay, let’s get a good deal on a villa now’, hahaha you know?
But I don’t know for sure, it just felt as a family that we don’t want to be doing visa run with all this going on. But it was really interesting – three days before we made the decision, my husband and the kids were in our villa building shelves, organising our storage room and putting the surf boards up properly. Like we were doing all these home improvements creating more of a home base kind of thing. So it was going from setting things up properly to then packing it all up and putting in storage in Denpasar, which we still have there. The idea was to come back to Australia and lay low for while until all this (pandemic situation) settles down before we make any long-term plans.
David:
Yeah, I faced the same decision to make. If I had family I probably would have come back to Australia too. The children would have been the tipping point for me. Yeah, it was the uncertainty of not being able to get back to Australia if we need to. And the healthcare here in Bali isn’t the best, so that would have been a consideration as well if we had kids.
Danielle:
Oh yeah. That was another thing in the mix for us too.
David:
Yeah. But we decided to stay in Bali because we don’t have children and we have a really good thing going here. So there was really no need to come back, but there was a lot of pressure and stress from the government to make a decision now or you may not be able to get back. It felt like it was threatening our security.
Danielle:
Yeah, that was definitely an influence for us too. It’s going to be interesting reflecting back on this in a years time and think ‘wow, that was really surreal’.
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